Diary of a Network Geek

No, not Linux bashing, actual penguins.

Okay, so here's a mindless, little bit of fun that my wife found. It's a penguin bashing game. The object is simple: as the penguins come down the tree, make the "yeti" bash them for distance. Left clicking both releases the penguin and makes the yeti swing its club. Distance is displayed when your penguin smashes to Earth in the snow. If you're good, you can get distance and a "face-plant". In any case, it's mindless fun. (You do need the Flash plugin installed to run the game and there's obnoxious sounds, so, if you're at work, turn down the volume.)

Happy Friday!

New "issue" in the job market.

Never heard of insourcing? Me, either, until this past week. And, apparently, it's made enough of a stir that two different on-line news sites have articles on it. My standard news source, Wired News, has one article and MSN has another. So, what is it? Well, apparently prison inmates work even cheaper than outsourcers in other countries. Yep, that's right, prison. Those crafty entreprenuers have put inmates to work in call centers and the like at prices that are, well, almost criminal. These guys make about $130 per month, or about $1500 per year, which beats those high-priced Indian outsourcers that make a whopping $6,000 to $8,000 per year.
Now, I have to admit, I'm a little conflicted over this. First, I think it's great that the jobs are staying here in the US. And, the prisoners seem happy because it beats mopping floors or working in the laundry. But, can private industry possibly compete with that? And, is it really moral to make that much profit off the prisoners? Hmm, maybe. I mean, isn't it fair that the criminals help pay for their own rent, food and upkeep? On the other hand, it is almost like slave labor. Of course, a group of small business owners feel that they're being put out of business due to this cheap, American labor force and are trying to say that it's illegal. Or, that it should be. That's still up in the air, but it is an interesting and, possibly, disturbing trend.

In theory, I'm in favor of inmates pulling their own weight, so to speak, in the US economy. And, of course, I'm in favor of almost anything that keeps jobs in the US instead of sending them overseas. But, what effect is this having on local economies? Is it helping or hurting? Or is it not effecting it at all?
More importantly, is it legal? Is it moral? Or, is it just good business? I mean, that was the argument for sending the work offshore in the first place. Honestly, it seems like a good idea, but there's just something about it that kind of bothers me. I guess it's too much like a freaky, sience-fiction scenario where the cheap labor force is increased by enacting harsher laws and jailing more "criminals". How long would it take for a two-class system to develop? I don't know, but I'm not sure I like where this might go.

Computer virus hunters, that is.

Ever wondered how anti-virus companies go about making those "updates" that so many of us download? Well, this article on Wired News gives us a little insight. Basically, they sound like any other IT department, to me, except for the somewhat added time-pressure I imagine most of them feel. I mean, at the rate new viruses (virii ?) appear "in the wild", these folks must be busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest!
The interesting thing about the article, though, was that it's getting harder to find people who want to do this kind of work and are qualified for it. Of course, the qualifications are somewhat "esoteric". For one thing, you need to know assembly. How many people know assembly these days? Besides my brother, I mean. (See, I *am* the non-nerd in the family!) Then, of course, you have to have a very creative mind, because computer virus hunters basically have to reverse engineer these little suckers. I would imagine it's very tedious work that only someone really focused and detail oriented is able to do well.

In any case, it was an interesting article.

Possibly.

According to this article on Australian IT, Micro$oft's Japanese headquarters were raided last week on the suspicion of violating Japanese anti-trust laws. The Japanese Fair Trade Commission apparently sent a warning to Micro$oft's HQ in Tokyo regarding certain statements in their license agreement that were deemed a violation of Japanese law. Namely, they have a clause prohibiting Japanese companies from suing Micro$oft for any real or percieved copyright infringements. Yow! That's a nasty one! Remember, those Japanese companies that are prohibited from sueing include giants like NEC, Fujitsu, Matsushita, Hitachi and Sony, all of whom make computer hardware and drivers for it. According to the article, "A spokesman for the Japanese unit, Microsoft Co, confirmed the raid but declined to comment further."

Not sure how this one will turn out, but it's a good one to watch, eh?

This book ROCKS!

Ahem. I know this is only the "pocket" version of this book, but Essential System Administration Pocket Reference is the best system admin book I've seen in a long time. Now, I'm relatively new to Unix system admin, but I've knocked around the industry for over ten years now, so I know a thing or two about sysadmin work. Usually, what I look for in a reference guide is either something quick and simple or with miles and miles of depth. If I'm new to a system, or I only administer it as a backup or "once in a blue moon", the quick guides suit me well. In this case, that was precisely what I was looking for in a Unix system administration guide. Essential System Administration Pocket Reference provides this to a "T".
Without getting bogged down in lengthy descriptions or philosphical discussions of which tool to use when, this pocket reference lists the basic administration commands, beyond GREP (though it lists that, too!), with a short description of what it does. It's easier to read than the MAN file, usually gives me few examples, and I don't have to open a second terminal window to use it! Seriously, I really reccomend this guide to anyone new to Unix, including Linux, system administration. Or, like me, is getting back into it for the first time since, well, since the Dark Ages. It's a great guide or refresher and it literally does fit in your pocket!

Hey, I've known that for years!

Well, according to this article on MSN Health, scientists tend to agree with me. Not only can coffee help with headaches and lift your mood, but it could lower your risk of cavities, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and colon cancer. WOW! That's a lot of medicine in a little "bad" habit! A lot of this, of course, is related to the high levels of caffiene in coffee, which is why I drink it in the first place. Double bonus!
Of course the article goes on to say that more scientific study needs to be done to determine the full impact of all these findings, but it all sounds pretty good to me.
So, hey, it's Friday, do something for your health: have another cup of coffee!

Guess what I've been doing today?

Well, at least for the past couple of hours. Yep, I've been trying to beat MyDoom into submission at my second, "part-time" consulting gig. I don't know where they got it, how many machines have it, yet, or even how long they've had it, but they got it. I even did the updates via the Micro$loth Update service, but that just wasn't good enough. So, while I type this entry, the MyDoom removal tool is downloading, as is Spybot Search and Destroy. Why both? Well, at least one of the people at this site has KaZa loaded on their machine. And, while I'm sure it's a great program for trading perfectly legal files, it's about the most pernicious virus infection vector I've ever seen. If I were making the policy here, I'd just uninstall it and tell them not to ever even consider asking about the possibility of installing it again. But, no, I'm a "consultant" so I have to be more diplomatic than that. Which, I think, I was. (My wife was there, so I think she'll back me up on that.) Is it wrong to pray for something so small and trival like someone forbidding another to run a piece of software? Well, if it is, it's too late for me, because I've already done it.
Oh, well, at least I got paid for the four hours of work by the hour, at my "on-the-side" rates...

On a happier foreign note...

Open Source projects in Germany. Accoding to this article on Wired News, Munich is going forward with thier migration to Open Source software. They're not the first, but they're the first I know of in Europe. And, they're the first I've heard about in a long time. That combined with the whole Novell purchase of SUSE makes me really glad to be of German descent! Seriously, it really looks like Germany is getting cranked up on the latest technology and that's cool. Hopefully, they'll pull some of the rest of Europe along! Go, Tux, go!

Webmonkey is dead.

Or, at least it's dying. According to this article on Wired News, almost eight years as the place to go to teach yourself HTML and related web coding, Webmonkey is shutting down. I learned some of my first PERL here, not to mention a lot of what I know about style sheets. Their tutorials made my sad, little web skills what they are today. I still use their reference materials when I'm looking up things like web color codes and special characters, not to mention their very handy Unix cheat sheet.
Well, all good things must come to and end, I suppose. I sure hope my wife puts some of the same kind of usefull information on her section of this website.

Not the usual Diary of a Network Geek book.

But, well worth looking into. I first got interested in Rastafarianism by way of William Gibson, who had several characters who were Dreadlocks. My ignorance of what that was all about was, well, somewhat shocking for me at the time. So, I started poking around. Quite a few years ago, I found Rastafari: Roots and Ideology by Barry Chevannes. It followed me around, unread, in a box for several years. Well, I finally read it this past week. What a shame I waited so long!
This was a very good book about the history and origins of a relatively new religion. Among other things, it was fascinating to track the birth of a new faith from its very start through the modern day. As a sociological look at a small, but growing, religious or spiritual movement, this is a great book. It is, however, a rather schollarly look at this movement and, as such, is somewhat dry at times. Still, it presents not only a well-rounded look at the religion, but also the socio-economic forces that shaped it. One of the main "pillars of faith", for instance, is the concept of "repatriation" to Ethiopia. This would never have come about if not for the practice of black slavery in the New World.
I'll not attempt to describe the intricacies of Rastafarianism in a short message, but, if you're interested in knowing more, this book is a great place to start.

(Note: This review also appeared on my other blog.)